Chosen
by dexterously-inept
Summary: Humans who come into contact with Gods of Death will know nothing but suffering for the remainder of their days, and she was no exception, even if she did technically fall under the protection of the Devil itself. (L/OC, not a SI)
1. Prologue

**CHOSEN**

Prologue: Xulub Hates Losing.

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 **Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. Go figure.**

 **This story is rated M for Mature, with a specific warning for sexual abuse and violence. Please read at your own discretion!**

 **This prologue will center around our main protagonist's mother.**

 **(See end of chapter for author's note).**

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A young woman is born to a small, distinctive ethnic group in the Southern tip of Mexico. She is named Akna, and aside from her family, the world knows nothing of her, just as they know nothing of the others in her community. Akna is of no importance to anyone, and she lives the life of a young girl for many years; it wasn't a particularly happy existence, as even _young_ girls like Akna were not treated well within this community, but it was not a particularly miserable existence either.

In Akna's native tongue, there was no term for _"maiden_ , _"_ as there were for _"girl"_ and _"woman."_ They simply did not have use for such a term, as when a _girl_ marries she becomes a _woman_ – the window for feminine innocence was pitifully small for people like Akna, one of the many peculiarities found within her isolated corner of the world.

Akna becomes a woman at the age of twelve. She is scared and uncertain when her mother prepares her for her wedding night, but she knows better than to try and escape her fate: her older sister, Atziri, had attempted to run the night before her own transition to womanhood, years ago, but her father beat her bloody before she could get away. Akna could still remember her sister's gurgling pleas as her father tugged her all the way to her wedding by her silky, black hair, her pretty face bruised and swollen.

Atziri had always been a fighter, as her sister fondly recalled, but Akna, always the submissive one, lacks this quality. She sometimes still saw Atziri, now a woman, tugging along a toddler as she went about her chores with a bulging belly, but her sister no longer had that fighting spark in her dark eyes, and she always seemed to hang her head in shame.

If Atziri cannot fight, Akna knows that she will be no different.

Her husband is forty-three, and when he's on top of Akna later that night as they consummate their marriage, she wonders if her father's beating may have hurt less than this.

The man's name is Kabil and he proves to be a very angry man, and a very terrible husband. Staying out until well past midnight, Kabil would then stumble home, bringing with him clouds of liquor fumes and a myriad of insults. Anything that dissatisfied him – be it unswept floors, dust on the furniture, even bland cooking – resulted in a wicked beating for Akna. She would bleed and scream and try to run, but there was simply no escaping him until he left again the following morning. And even then, she was trapped: shackles around her ankles served to keep her confined to Kabil's shack, and the community she lived in would imprison her entire family should she desert her husband, as was common practice to discourage wives from fleeing their patriarch. A girl belonged to her father, and a woman to her husband.

For Akna, those first years are a waking nightmare, and her body was now a minefield of scars and twisted bones. She even had a bad knee, walking with a noticeable limp at the young age of fifteen.

Her only respite was the few daylight hours in which Kabil wasn't home. She had never been entirely certain of his whereabouts during the day, and Kabil didn't permit her to leave the shack without him to accompany her, but she was thankful for the peace that this isolation brought.

This peace, however small, was soon stolen from her, too.

It starts as a low, raspy whisper, condescending and profane, polluting Akna's solitude. The young woman doesn't see anyone within the small shack, even though it sounded like someone was crouched over her shoulder, breathing obscenities into her left ear. At first, Akna doesn't respond – she doesn't respond to most things, these days – but she immediately notices that the sounds cease the second Kabil walks through the door, and begins again when he falls asleep that night.

"Poor child, fate has been unkind to you," it growls, full of hatred.

Akna ignores its cruel remarks for as long as she can - it says nothing she doesn't already know - but without even her pitiful reprieve to keep her sanity, she soon finds it to be unbearable. She knows that it whispers at her bedside, every night, and so one night, she takes with her to bed a match and pretends to fall asleep. When the whispering begins, she strikes the match and holds it out in front of her face, illuminating the creature.

It was short and stood like a human, but it was no human. A naked creature with slimy, blackened skin and protruding bones. Sharp horns twist up from its head, covered in more black slime, and its eyes bulge grotesquely from its head, a bright shade of jade green. Aside from its emaciated form, its belly was large and protruding. Clawed, humanoid hands were held tight against its chest, but rather than feet, its legs ended in hooves.

It stared at her, flashing a smile full of pointed teeth and breathing excitedly.

"Xulub," Akna breathed in terror.

The Devil.

Xulub laughed, reaching out and pinching the flaming tip of her match with bony fingers. Akna did not sleep that night, but Xulub wasn't whispering anymore. Had she struck another match, however, she would find herself still face-to-face with Xulub, for it continued to stare at her in a similar fashion for the remainder of the night.

When the sun rose and Kabil left once again, Xulub no longer felt the need to hide itself from Akna. It began assaulting her with its words again, now complete with obscene, even phallic, sexual gestures. Xulub did everything it could to make Akna's life worse than it had been for the past several years, sabotaging her housework being its new favorite hobby. It ruined her food when her back was turned, filled her water jugs with piss, melted all her candles and coated her freshly scrubbed surfaces with the dribbling wax.

Kabil's beatings grew horrifically brutal as Xulub's torture became more perverse. Even male neighbors expressed concern over the state of Kabil's little wife, but always in compliance with custom, no one moved to help her.

Xulub was more than pleased with itself. It mocked the young woman, spatting on and cursing her, dancing gleefully in the corner of the shack whenever Kabil beat her for the state of the house. The shack was now in complete disarray, with the clay utensils being stolen or broken daily, and the few skirts Akna owned now in tatters from Xulub's meddling.

One morning, after Kabil had left her in a bloodied heap, Akna could suddenly smell rotting flesh. The rotting corpse of a dog lay on her dining room table, complete with a swarm of flies and a pungent odor, Xulub dancing eagerly beside his _gift_ , as if it were a kindly cat leaving his owner a treat on their doorstep.

Akna snapped, doubling over and dry heaving between panicked sobs.

" _Why!?"_ she demanded. What had she done to provoke the Devil?

Xulub stopped its dancing, grinning wickedly and walking towards her. Akna sat back on her heels and stared up at the Devil, not flinching when the creature reached out a clawed finger and _pointed_ , down, down, down, to her abdomen.

Akna's brown eyes widened in horror, counting out the weeks since her last month blood on her fingers. Xulub was right, she hadn't bled since its arrival over a month ago.

She sobbed for hours, huddled in the corner of the shack while the Devil taunted her. Kabil came home late again that night, still reeking of booze, and began to scream at her, but for the first time Akna screamed right back at him. She told him of the pregnancy, and Kabil backhanded her so hard that she could taste the familiar, metallic tang of her blood before he stormed back outside.

Xulub crawled out from underneath the kitchen table, the rotting dog still sitting on top of it, and spread its cracked lips into a wide grin, reaching out its hand to caress Akna's belly. She slapped it away, causing the Devil to laugh.

"My dear Akna, will you not make a deal with me?"

Akna felt her blood run cold as a horrible thought crossed her mind: what if this baby is not Kabil's, but rather Xulub's?

"Give me the girl," Xulub purred. "Give me your daughter and I can grant you anything in the world."

Akna remembered her grandmother's tales of Xulub from when she was a girl. Xulub always existed to cause chaos and destruction: it knew your weaknesses and your fears, it manipulated you and tried to break you, but Xulub didn't lie. Xulub was bound by its word, and although it was cunning, it simply could not tell a lie.

"Your husband, I can make it so he never touches you again…" A sick chuckle. "You hate him, don't you?" It knew the answer to that.

Kabil reentered the shack, having collected himself enough to begin his nightly raging. He grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to her feet, before he began delivering blows directly to her pelvis. Akna realized with sudden horror what his intent was, and she shrieked for him to _please_ stop. Everything had been taken from her, not her child, too! For the first time in years, she called to her neighbors for help. None came.

Invisible to Kabil, Xulub watched from the corner, smiling.

Once her husband had tired himself, he left her sobbing on the floor, clutching her bruised belly, but no blood escaped her. No sign of distress from the baby within her. This distressed Akna more than it comforted her: no normal child could survive such a beating, and she had a sinking feeling that no amount of trauma would shake her child from her womb prematurely.

"You hate him, why save his child?" Xulub asked, emerging from his place in the corner.

Akna's cheek was pressed against the dirt floor, and her voice was raspy when she spoke: "What will you do with her?"

"What I do with the merchandise is none of your concern, my dear."

 _Merchandise_. Xulub had chosen that word on purpose, and Akna winced. The thought of dooming her own daughter to the same objectified existence she'd been forced to undergo was too cruel. It hurt too much.

"No, my daughter will not be born into a life like mine."

"If she's even born at all," the Devil said, laughing.

It appears Xulub would keep the child alive within her womb, but once she was born and no longer of any use, it wouldn't protect her any longer. With a father like Kabil, what chance did her tiny baby have?

"Kabil, take _him_ ," she pleaded, tears mingling with the red clay of the floor. "Take my husband instead."

Xulub stroked her hair back from her face. "Only the unborn."

Akna stopped listening after that, much to Xulub's displeasure. He pulled at her hair, trailed his claws over her brown skin until red blood surfaced, even dripped hot wax on her exposed cheek, to get her to respond, but she remained silent. None of this phased Akna, anyways; her world had been rife with physical pain for years, and tonight she felt miles away from it.

Kabil beat her in a similar manner every night for the following months, growing increasingly violent as his wife began to show signs of her pregnancy. All the while, Akna was silent, and Xulub continued to torment her.

Until, one night, Kabil burnt her with a hot pan, making the teenager scream and filling the shack with the stench of her burning flesh. Reaching onto the counter, spurred by her pain and psychological trauma, Akna picked up her sharpest cooking knife and drug it across both of her wrists, slumping quickly onto the floor as crimson blood pooled around her. Kabil ran from the shack in shock, and Akna smiled. Finally, it would be over, everything would be over. She and her child would be safer in death than here.

But then Xulub was standing over her, smiling.

"No, please…"

It grabbed her wrists in either of its clawed hands, squeezing so hard she felt her wrist bones snap a thousand times over, and she screamed again. When the Devil removed its hands, her wrists had only thin pink scars on them.

"What's your wish, Akna?" it whispered. "Anything in the world, tell me."

She was powerless. She couldn't even take her own life, it wasn't going to let her. And so she screamed in its face, wailing as if to release the pain that had been building up for years, her mind broken from having even her death stolen from her. Xulub just kept smiling.

"I can make it so Kabil never touches you again. I can make it so no one ever hurts you again. Just give me the girl, and I will make any wish come true. Hurry, Akna, dear, he'll be back again soon."

Akna touched her belly, always black and blue from Kabil's nightly beatings, and felt her daughter's soft signs of life. Her sweet little daughter; despite everything, she loved her. The baby was a parasite, was the reason for her suffering these past several months, but that didn't change anything. A mother couldn't help but love her child, even if the child was a monster.

She knew what she had to do. The realization hurt in more than one way.

"Anything, at all? Do you promise?" Akna asked tremulously.

"I do. Anything, so long as you give me the girl."

"Then," Akna began, choosing her words as carefully as her fractured psyche would allow. "I wish for my daughter to live a long life... I wish for her to see over a hundred years of life, so that when I get to meet her in the afterlife, my daughter can tell me about a world she's _seen_ for herself. I want you to ensure my daughter's protection for one hundred years before you so much as _touch_ her soul, that is my wish."

Now Akna was smiling at it, stroking her belly fondly as she drifted off peacefully into unconsciousness. She had at least won her daughter – her _Ixazaluoh Ku_ , the name she'd privately dubbed her over the months of silence she'd endured – some time, some _protection_ from the rotten world she was about to enter.

For the first time, Xulub had stopped smiling.

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 **Ixazaluoh Ku (IX-UH-ZAY-LOO-UH K'OO): meaning "Dawn God." Don't worry, the name is supposed to be a bit unusual, but our main character will have a nickname to replace it. This is Death Note, after all.**

 **Akna: Our Mother; associated with fertility.**

 **Kabil: He who has a good hand to sow.**

 **Xulub: Devil, demon, or horns. Usually used to refer to the Devil. In this story, Xulub is simply what Akna's people call Satan.**

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 **A/N: This story will be surrounding Ixazaluoh, the child of Akna, and will include some DARK themes, occult references, Shinigami, lots of fun stuff… And, eventually, we'll hit Wammy House and L and all of the people we love, but first I have to go over what happened to Xulub and his** _ **merchandise**_ **.**

 **So, yeah, expect creepy stories, random allusions to lore all around the world, and a kickass Satan-spawn for a protagonist. I've had this story in my head for a while, so there's at least a method to my madness.**

 **Reviews motivate me to update quicker ~**


	2. Chapter 1

**CHOSEN**

Chapter One: The Hunt.

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 **Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.**

 **Thanks to all who reviewed/faved/followed, and sorry for the couple weeks wait on this. I spat this out in a five hour guilt-and-drug-induced writing session and edited it right after while I was dead inside, so I apologize in advanced for any spelling/grammatical/continuity errors. Anyways, let's get on with it!**

 **(See end of chapter for author's note).**

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No one knew how the fire started, only that what had once been was no longer: the shack that had housed Kabil and his little wife was long gone by the time the first rooster crowed and the villagers stirred to the stench of sulfur and smoke, pouring out of their respective homes like ants from a demolished colony, and pooling anxiously around the fire.

The flames were black and they burned for days. The villagers shuffled anxiously around it, diverting their eyes in passing, only speaking of it in the most private of whispers as the black light glowed outside of their huts, casting strange shadows on the sleeping world around it.

Some speculated the cause of it, some prayed that the fire would spare their families, and some even mourned for Kabil and Akna, as the couple hadn't been seen since the mysterious destruction of their home, but one whisper was common amongst them all, joining together in their conviction and trailing out into the air with the smoke: _Xulub_. However, when the wind blew and the day started again, the air was blown clear. No one seemed as willing to accuse in the light of day, for fear of bringing the black wrath onto themselves. And still, the fire burned.

Offerings were laid out beside what had once been a shack, evidence of the home long since burnt away, and the fire dug out a deep pit in the earth beneath it. Days passed, and the pit rounded out until a perfect orb of surreal black fire could be seen from any point in the village. Fear, clammy with anticipation, hung around the village, heavier than the humidity in the air.

 _Mercy,_ the people silently cried. _Mercy_. For such an omen had never before been seen, not in their documented history. Helpless, they waited, although for what they were unsure.

A young woman by the name of Atziri, too, waited, although her pain was far more singular and unique than the others: she was mourning her baby sister, lost to the world only days ago. She hadn't spoken to her family in years, as her husband and children were now her family, but she recalled the golden days of her innocence with a wistful fondness: the last fragments of her memories nothing but ash, consumed in Hell fire, she felt an aching hole in her chest that even her children could not fill.

She hadn't been able to sleep much since the fire began, and that night was no different. Sitting, waiting, elbows resting on the window sill as she stared at the flames in the distance. There was no moon that night, only the stars and the faint purple glow of black fire, and it was eerily quiet, with only the _cracking_ and _popping_ of the inferno polluting the silence.

Until, as quickly as they'd started, the flames were extinguished. Atziri snapped out of her daze, having fallen into the warm state between sleep and consciousness hours into her waiting, brown eyes staring wide into the darkness. No _crack_ or _pop_ could be heard - although Atziri could feel from the shift in the air _alone_ that the cursed flames were indeed gone - and a heavy, unnatural silence took its place. Not even the animals in the forest surrounding the village dared make a sound.

Atziri held her breath with the world.

A shrill cry pierced the night air, shattering the quiet abruptly. It was a pitiful, gurgling sound, and the telling lurch in Atziri's swollen breasts was all too familiar. Atziri's husband and children silently stood behind her in the window, even the baby waking silently in its crib, and similar clusters of little brown faces could be seen in every opening – in doorways and windows and even brown eyes in the gaps of wooden board walls – all listening, knowing, but refusing to go out and see it for themselves.

Had someone gone outside that night, they'd have found a baby girl writhing in the smoldering ashes that had once been her home, mewling and squirming in confusion. Had someone gone outside that night, they may have thought the scene beautiful: a perfect child rising from the ashes, like a phoenix with wisps of brown curly hair and unnaturally bright, jade green eyes.

But the brown faces stayed put in their little homes as they listened to the girl scream her newly-formed lungs clear, and when the sun rose the next morning, chasing away the uncertainty of the night, the cries stopped.

The phoenix girl was gone.

No one understood, and no one spoke of it the following day, nor did anyone approach the blackened pit, for fear of agitating the monster it had spawned the night before. They simply clung to their tentative relief at having been spared the Devil's wrath, unaware that they were still waiting, in a sense.

Their first gift had been fire, the second a phoenix, but the third was nothing more than a whisper; it crept over them in the night, adept with a deadly, blameless grace, bringing forth angry welts and glassy eyes.

The Red Village, that's what the world named them when they were gone: it was the sort of phenomenon that went unmentioned by most of the world, as they were made uncomfortable by the uncertainty of it all. Doctors and specialists alike were stumped by the discovery that an indigenous village had been wiped out apparently overnight, by an unnamable disease comparable only to that of the Black Death, and that all traces of said pestilence had seemingly disappeared back into the dark without a trace, the only evidence of its existence being hundreds of red men, women, and children tucked peacefully into their beds, mouths gaping with rigor and eyes bulging, but hauntingly tranquil nonetheless.

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Continents away, an infant girl sat naked on a dark doorstep, her fat limbs flailing and her brown face tinged pink with the nightly cold. Around her neck sat a black necklace, the chain flush against the newborn's lumpy neck, a stone of jade green – identical to that of her eyes, which had prematurely taken up vivid color – hanging from it, looking ridiculously large as it rested on the baby's small chest.

A couple emerged from the house, drawn out by the crying babe, expressing their shock to one another quickly and in hushed tones. The woman, spurred by maternal instinct, gathered the child up in her arms, tucking the naked infant carefully into the folds of her cloak.

Her husband frowned down at the baby, taking up the pendent of her odd necklace and gently examining it in calloused fingers. It had a certain antiquity to it, a perfect oval stone framed in intricate black metal. Moving to remove the bulky item from the baby, the woman snaked a hand around the back of her neck in search of a clasp. Instead, white hot pain met her, and she snapped her hand back to find that her fingertips had been left pink, shiny, and taught. The infant girl, having quieted to a gurgling dribble since being picked up by the woman, began to scream once again, doubtlessly due to the burning necklace.

"It _burned_ me!" the woman told her husband, and surely enough, a similar reaction occurred anytime someone tried to remove the necklace. The chain would grow and shrink, always resting as a comfortable choker on the girl's neck, but was strangely clasp-less, and clearly cursed so as not to allow its removal.

Her necklace was wholly unsettling to the couple, but they took in the baby all the same. Their country was unkind to orphans, and they had no way of ensuring the girl's safety outside of their direct care. They were unusually kind people, with three young daughters of their own; food would be tight with an additional mouth to feed, but the couple could only hope that someone would show the same kindness to their children in turn, should the need ever arise. In their country, even as the poor farmers they were, they knew they had been left better off by the wars than many others.

And so, by the soft glow of the hearth that night, they bundled up the child in raggedy hand-me-downs and laid her down in a dresser drawer they'd lined with blankets. The man who would be the girl's father reached down into the bundle once more, careful not to wake the sleeping girl, and turned the pendent of her necklace over.

Etched into the back, in crisp, capital lettering read a single word: " _LUCY_."

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Lucy was a very calm baby, her newfound family soon discovered; she'd idly kick her feet, her bright gaze mature – almost intelligent – for her age, and often transfixed on a distant, invisible point in the corner of the room.

Invisible to the others, that is: Lucy could see it, clear as day, sitting in the corner. It liked to watch her, smiling with pointed teeth and bulging green eyes, its skin black as pitch, complete with horns on its head and hooved feet. It usually just observed, laughing occasionally, but sometimes it would offer a comment, although at this point it was more to itself: the infant girl had no cognizant speech skills yet, and while she was not a normal girl in many ways, age had her trapped in a universally familiar state of ignorance for the time being.

" _Whore of a mother, let me show you how rotten this world can truly be,"_ it would mutter, when moods of particular wickedness overtook it and its hatred overflowed out into a venomous dribble. _"I have plans, yes, plans, she'll see…"_

Lucy didn't mind, though; for her, life included Xulub, and she had no reason to be afraid of such a constant presence. In a way, Lucy's infantile mind had projected a paternal role onto the Devil: she'd even laugh when the creature reappeared in the corner after a long absence, innocently happy to see her mysterious companion.

As years passed and Lucy grew, her mother and father assumed the creature she occasionally spoke of was an imaginary monster – unsettling to hear about, sure, but certainly nothing for adults to fear – and Lucy soon realized that no one else could see Xulub.

At the age of five, Lucy was a bright and beautiful young girl. She maintained the unnatural calm from her infancy, but it came off as tranquil rather than frightening. The girl, ironically enough considering her origins, simply overflowed with life: she showed kindness to all around her, singing softly as she did her chores and trailing along happily behind her sisters when they were finished.

And how her sisters _adored_ their baby sibling, whether they were related by blood or not; and it was rather clear, as they grew, that the girls didn't share the same genetics as Lucy, but the three elder sisters never paid any mind to it. Yes, with her bright green eyes standing out vividly against smooth brown skin, marred only by a beauty mark located bellow the left outer corner of her eye, her petite frame surrounded by a wild halo of dark curls, Lucy certainly stood out from the family at first glance. But she, too, ignored this, instead simply appreciating her sisters for their individual characters: the three of them, all older than her, were only a few years apart in age.

The eldest of the three, Zeina, was tall, athletic, and with a fearsome temper. She took to the leadership that came along with being the eldest child easily, as though destined for the role, and protected her sisters with a fiery, almost violent, determination.

Behind her was Aseel, and she was only a bit shorter than Zeina, but rather than possessing her elder sister's narrow, sharp, angular frame, she was soft and womanly, almost plump when the winter months kept her indoors. Aseel was the one who coddled them when they were sick, who kept the younger ones clean and fed when their mother was too busy. Lucy admired her beauty and her easy, maternal kindness.

And finally, there was Uri, a tiny girl who loved books (no matter how hard they were to come by, somehow, she would always mysteriously acquire reading material) and learning, and would constantly spout off useless information at the slightest provocation. Not that it was all useless; she was rather useful when the girls played in the woods together, her memory good for reminding them of the poisonous plants to watch for, and her quick strategic abilities saving them from getting into trouble when their games went too far.

The girls were inseparable, even when they fought, and their parents were so thankful for their close bonds as their nation deteriorated – unbeknownst to the innocent children – into chaos and war around them.

Lucy could sense the tension, though – she had a knack for reading people, it would seem – just as she had sensed her need to keep Xulub a secret. Her intuition, the reason for her calm nature, seemed stronger than her sisters, although Lucy didn't understand it much, so she kept it to herself. Still, though, she would read the unrest in her father's stiff shoulders, in the deep lines around her mother's mouth, and Xulub would laugh.

That was all Xulub did now: watch, sometimes disappearing for random amounts of time, and displaying amusement at strange cues. Lucy had tried talking to it before, but it always ignored her, just pointing its wide grin at her while it wheezed excitedly, and so the child had learned to act as though it weren't there at all.

One night, however, it spoke to her:

"It's time."

Lucy had looked up from her dinner bowl, frowning slightly at the creature and cocking her head to the side in confusion. It simply laughed again, that familiar wheezing sound enough to tell her that Xulub had no intention of clarifying its cryptic statement.

 _POW! POW! POW!_

Three loud gunshots echoed in the distance, silencing the family's merriment, the change as abrupt as a bucket of water being poured over a hearth. Lucy's father whipped his head in the direction of the window, straining to listen. Distantly, the excited shouts of men could be heard, and Lucy watched her mother's face visibly pale.

Without a word, her father stood from his chair and walked into the room he shared with their mother. From their dresser, he withdrew a tiny key and inserted it into the lock of the trunk at the foot of their bed. Lucy strained to see inside the trunk, intrigued, as she'd never seen her father open it before. It had always been locked, ever since she could remember. From its depths, he drew out a long, old shotgun, a box of ammunition, and a cleaning kit. With deft fingers he set about quickly cleaning and loading it. From the familiar way he did it, Lucy guessed he often handled the shotgun, perhaps maintaining it at night while his family slept.

The sounds of the men outside grew louder, and no one else moved from the table.

"Amina," her father said, addressing her mother with uncharacteristic sternness. The older woman nodded her head, the jerky movement along with her pale coloring giving away her unease, before her husband walked outside, shotgun in hand.

"Listen, my girls," her mother whispered. "You're going to go out the back and hide in the woods. Uri, you remember the way to my sister's house, yes? It's miles away, and I know it's cold, but you _must run there_. All of you. Zeina, you will have to carry Lucy, but you are _strong_." At this, her mother took a deep, shuddering breath, as if forcing down tears. "And Aseel, dear, I have a bag packed for you to carry. My girls… you must be strong and take care of one another."

Hastily, she grabbed a bag from the unlocked trunk and thrust it into Aseel's soft arms. The responsible one, she would keep track of their things and ration it all between the four of them when the time came. Uri, with her perfect memory, was already working out the quickest way through the woods behind her sharp eyes. Zeina, so strong and protective, scooped the littlest of the sisters up in her arms. Lucy felt an ache in her chest when her mother kissed each of them on the forehead.

"Go, my girls. Now, you must _go_ , and do not turn back no matter what."

Lucy noticed that Aseel was crying, and that Zeina's expression was even steelier than usual. Uri, not much older than Lucy, still had that hard, calculating look in her eye.

"We will meet you at my sister's, my girls, now _go_!"

Lucy clung to the promise, but she knew that it was empty. Her mother didn't plan to join them; she'd just said her goodbyes.

* * *

It was when they were traipsing through the dry underbrush, the dark wood opening up, preparing to swallow them, that they heard the first gunshot.

 _POW!_

"It was father's gun, he got them," Zeina ground out, and Lucy fixed her green gaze on her sister's grim expression. _Lying_ , her intuition told her. _She's lying_.

Lucy's little heart beat faster against her ribs, but she remained silent. The girls paused for a moment in the underbrush to mourn their father before continuing forward. Had they turned around, they'd have seen his body sprawled out on the other side of the clearing, opposite of them, but the sounds of soldiers whooping told them all they needed to know. Gritting their teeth, they continued forward.

Zeina's bony arms bore almost painfully into Lucy, her sister's grip was so tight, but the girl knew better than to complain. Instead, she peered over the eldest girl's shoulder, so that she was the only to see their childhood home as men in uniform poured into the front of it. A scream, another gunshot, and they were orphaned.

From the window, Lucy could make out Xulub's black, horned head smiling back at her, its body jerking familiarly as it laughed.

Aseel's soft weeping could be heard over the sounds of triumph coming from what had once been their home. Zeina clutched Lucy harder. Uri was the one to keep her composure, a stony mask of logic sliding easily over her features as she took the head of their ragtag team and began to run in the direction of their aunt's house.

They made a decent head start before they heard the loud soldiers entering the forest behind them, still too far to see through the trees, but Lucy's insides screamed that it wasn't enough, that they would soon catch the little girls and execute them as they had their parents. Uri picked up her pace slightly, her sharp mind no doubt having come to the same conclusion.

The girls hurried along, Zeina's grip readjusting on Lucy as her arms doubtlessly began to feel the strain of fatigue. Lucy briefly wondered if her sister would leave her behind, but she selfishly hoped she wouldn't. Zeina's legs were long and fast, but the men were still gaining, fighting for some unknown war that had been raging since before Lucy's birth, a war with two enemy sides. Enemies to them, to Lucy's family, at least.

"We have to split up, they're likely to follow one set of footprints," Uri rasped, her voice hard. Lucy looked down over Zeina's shoulder in surprise, not having even considered their faint footprints in the thin layer of white frost that covered the ground, and again she was thankful for Uri's cleverness. "Our aunt's house is miles North, see the star? It's under it, just keep going."

The three girls, one with the fourth in her arms, nodded to one another fiercely, trying to steer their minds away from teary goodbyes as they all ran off in separate directions.

Lucy stared over Zeina's shoulder, her chin bouncing against it and jarring her jaw slightly with each of her sister's long strides. For a time, the sounds of the men quieted and a small, hopeful voice within her wondered if Uri's plan had truly worked, that perhaps the men had given up or followed only one of them.

 _POW!_ Zeina let out a choked sob, her knees almost buckling beneath her, but remembering her tiny sister in her arms, she pushed herself on. Lucy tried not to wonder which of her sisters lay dead in the snow tonight, nothing but a frozen red smear to be reclaimed by the forest.

The child could hear the men running behind them now, although they were a bit quieter and their counterparts more distant, revealing that Uri's plan had indeed failed; the men had stopped for a moment to split into three groups, one for each tiny trail. They _whooped_ and hollered to one another, the sounds of merriment confusing Lucy.

 _Why?_ This wasn't the way soldiers fought, not the ones in Uri's books, and they certainly weren't the type of opponents to take up arms against. But still here they were, being hunted like animals in the night.

The realization felt like ice. _Hunted_. That's what this was to them, it was nothing more than a game for them to entertain themselves with. Anger joined the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and she thought of her mother and father and sister lying dead in the snow, and all for a _game_. The soldiers, disillusioned from years of war, tormented them simply for the thrill of it, and Lucy fought the urge to be sick.

 _POW!_ A second gunshot, more shouts, and suddenly Zeina and Lucy were alone in the world.

Zeina pumped her legs faster than Lucy had ever seen them go, and she clutched her so tight that Lucy could hardly breathe. Their path was twisting through the snow now, no longer following the bright star that clever Uri had pointed to. Before Lucy could register what was happening, Zeina was thrusting her unceremoniously into the hollow of a dead tree.

"Be quiet now, baby sister, and when the men are gone follow the star." Lucy felt her sister press her chapped lips to her forehead before Zeina kicked away the footprints leading up to the tree and took off sprinting in the opposite direction.

Lucy could hear the men running now, too, much closer than she'd been able to hear them before. They seemed to hesitate a moment near her hiding place, clearly noticing the scuffling in their trail, but eventually they followed Zeina's path.

 _She will get away,_ Lucy told herself. _Zeina is too strong, they will not catch her._

Her gut twisted, and Lucy felt hot tears pour down her cheeks. Lucy had a knack for telling when people were lying, even if the lies were her own.

 _POW!_

The men could be heard cheering in the distance, joining the sounds of Lucy's choked sobs, and behind her, she heard a familiar wheezing laugh.

* * *

 **A/N: This chapter actually had to be cut a little short, so this story arch will finish in the following chapter. It ran a little longer than I'd planned and I didn't want the ending to come off as rushed, so yeah… Sad cliffhanger it is.**

 **Lucy (yeah the Devil definitely thinks he's funny!) is just a baby here for most of this so we don't know much about her character yet, and we probably won't until – uhhhhhhh – the third chapter? Fourth chapter? One of those. Don't worry, things seem crazy now, but I actually have a plan. It may not be a good plan, but I have one! So yeah, coming up: more sad, angst, then some violence and Xulub developments, sad, angst… What was I saying? Oh, yeah, then Wammy House eventually. Things will lighten up a bit, have some dark humor thrown in there, and Luce will reveal her true colors. And L, whom I love (duh). I'm excited for this story, if you couldn't tell!**

 **(Reviews are love ~)**


	3. Chapter 2

**CHOSEN**

Chapter Two: Xulub NEVER Loses.

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.**

 **THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THE KIND REVIEWS I'VE RECEIVED! I appreciate the support so much!**

 **SPECIFIC TW FOR MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE FOLLOWING COUPLE OF CHAPTERS!**

 **I wrote this one on the tail end of an LSD trip. Figured I'd make a little experiment out of this, seeing as I've yet to produce an entirely sober chapter of this story and I am a deeply fucked up individual. Lucy understands. Sorry if my insanity leaks over into the story, but then again, with a plotline like this I guess I must be a little insane? Haha, alright, let's do this.**

 **(See end of chapter for author's note).**

* * *

 _Cold._ She felt so very cold.

Lucy wasn't sure how much time had passed since Zeina had thrust her into the hollow of the tree, but the stars were bright now, the round moon shining against the thin layer of snow that coated the ground, giving off a ghostly glow. Lucy cradled her sleeping legs against her chest, her head tipped back to the sky and her expression oddly blank, aside from the red tinge to her cheeks, though it was unclear whether the discoloration was due to tears shed or the harsh chill of the night. Her green head scarf, a gift from her mother, had slipped to her shoulders, releasing her dark curls from their confinement.

 _I'm alone in the world,_ Lucy thought, her consciousness sulking amongst the stars.

The men responsible were gone now, although she didn't need her intuition to tell her that. It written in the heavy silence of the night, in the stillness of the dying underbrush, in the cold, empty odor of the breeze that howled through the barren trees. Zeina's dainty footsteps could still be made out in the snow, though Lucy knew that – soon enough – the fresh snow would soon cover them entirely, as it had already begun to do; the snow would cover her family's corpses too, until spring thaws them, until life begins again and draws them back into nature, forgotten by the world.

But not forgotten by her, not by Lucy. She hoped that the forest would reclaim her as well, if she waited long enough. Lucy greeted the numbness in her limbs with open arms, as her mind drifted in and out of awareness.

" _Get up now, little sister, you cannot rest here any longer."_

Lucy's eyes lost their glassy sheen, a pitiful glimmer of hope sparking in their green depths at the sound of her sister's sweet voice. Aseel's soft hands rubbed warmth into her shoulders, tugging at her discarded scarf until it wrapped around the lower half of Lucy's face.

"I thought you were gone," Lucy whispered in a raspy tone, her voice weak from fatigue and tears prickling at her eyes.

Aseel said nothing as she tugged her sister to her feet, her expression soft and smiling. She spun the girl, pressing her hands gently against her back, urging her to walk. Lucy trudged forward obediently, her numb feet making each step agony, and her tiny knees shaking as they strained against exhaustion.

" _Follow the bright star, remember? We're almost to the trail, just keep going!"_ Uri's squeaky voice sounded behind her, and Lucy choked out a tiny sob in her tentative relief, though her gut revolted violently at her shift in mood. How could they be alive?

Lucy walked for what felt like hours, following the bright star that pointed her north. Her body ached and her pace slowed, but Aseel nudged her from behind when she faltered and Uri offered her encouragements, yet Lucy couldn't bring herself to turn around and glance at the girls behind her.

The sky began to lighten at the same time the incline steepened, and Lucy collapsed to the damp ground.

 _I can't_ , she thought miserably. _I'm sorry._

" _Up, up, little sister."_ Lucy's clouded mind jumped into awareness at the sound of Zeina's voice. _"You're so very close, you can't give up now. The path is just ahead."_

Lucy cried gently as she shoved herself up onto her hands and knees. The pain felt so far away when she finally stood, as did the cold, and she instead clung to the melodic sound of her eldest sister's encouragements. Zeina had always been so _strong_ ; Lucy could be strong for her, at least this once.

Surely enough, the incline soon leveled out to a narrow dirt path through the trees, and Lucy's small feet shuffled against the snow. It was a straight shot, and with the sun now peaking over the horizon, Lucy could see a literal light at the end of her tunnel, shining like a bright beacon of hope against the cold, grey forest.

" _You're so close, little sister, keep going!"_

" _Her house is right beneath the star, didn't I tell you?"_

" _You're stronger than all of us, Lucy."_

The path opened up into a small forest clearing, and surely enough, a single cottage sat in the center of it, a dead vegetable patch and a deserted chicken coop behind it. Lucy collapsed in front of the door to the cottage, weeping in relief.

"We made it!" she cried out, turning to face her sisters, only to find that the clearing was entirely empty, aside from her. That didn't mean that Lucy couldn't see her sisters, however: they simply hadn't left the forest yet.

Zeina, tall and proud, stood with a hand on Uri and Aseel's shoulders. They all smiled wistfully at her, flickering oddly in the wind. Lucy squinted her eyes in the early morning dim: sunlight had begun to filter in through the bare winter trees, as well as through her sisters. Their coloring was oddly pale, to the point where they gave off an unusual glow.

This change made the crimson blood leaking from their bullet wounds stand out harshly, blooming like bright red flowers over the children. Aseel in the stomach, Uri in the chest, and Zeina – beautiful, strong Zeina – had a gaping hole in the place where her left eye should have been. Lucy's relief turned to ash, and she began to cry again, in grief and confusion and anger.

Two figures appeared behind the three dead girls, gently tugging them back into the forest, but not before turning to wave into the clearing. Her father's expression was fairly blank, as he'd always been a rather stoic man, but a bittersweet smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he said his silent farewells. Her mother's brown skin wrinkled around her twinkling dark eyes before they all five turned, hand-in-hand, and walked back into the forest, the morning mist wrapping around the back of them in a familiar embrace.

As if on cue, the birds began to sing.

* * *

Lucy waited hours before she stood and entered the cottage. The silence itself was telling enough, so Lucy didn't need to listen to her gut for this: the roaming soldiers hadn't spared her aunt. The cottage was dark and cold inside, and her aunt's wrinkled face was tipped back in her chair, eyes bulging slightly from her head and her mouth hanging wide open. The air had a heavy stink to it, though the freeze had kept the rot off her for the time being.

This loss didn't particularly sting, at least not at this point. Lucy was too tired to react to any more loss, too tired to even process the things she'd witnessed the night before. And so, instead, she stared blankly at the corpse, counting the bloody holes in the woman's torso (there were seven), until she felt hot, wet breath brush against the back of her neck, reeking of decay.

"Time to go," Xulub wheezed in her ear.

Lucy felt a sharp tug in her abdomen, and suddenly the world was spinning, and she was falling. She didn't try to fight it, not like she'd tried to fight Xulub's last announcement. She simply allowed the void to overtake her, until her consciousness had fled and she fell blissfully into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

The Girl Who Had Fallen from the Sky: she fell hard enough to crack her ribs against the pavement, hard enough to startle the EMTs bustling busily around their red-and-white vehicles. The girl was unconscious for days after being admitted to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center.

She was placed on a psych hold after she woke; no one had thought to restrain her, not when her ribs had already miraculously healed in her slumber, not when there was no one around to _care_ about the orphan child in an impoverished hospital. Not until she was sprinting across the room, unimpeded, screaming curses at something in the corner, lunging and wrapping her hands around an invisible target.

" _WHY?!"_ she howled, although not in English – in fact, no one could identify the language later, not even the girl herself, who spoke perfect English in every conversation afterwards.

" _STAY AWAY FROM ME!"_ Lucy shrieked, in grief and pain, and Xulub laughed. Up until her hands wrapped around its neck: its expression then turned into a grimace, and it disappeared for _days_.

Yes, she was restrained after that, and they diagnosed the episode as a bout of psychosis, perhaps brought on by trauma. No one could explain the severe burns on her hands that appeared after, though: they looked chemical, and she hadn't had them when she fell.

The hospital staff decided to forget about that.

* * *

Years pass – six, to be exact – and Lucy is a skinny eleven-year-old with scarred up knees and a bad temper. She stood beneath an overpass, piles of discarded shopping carts and various debris piled around the concrete pillars, the little girl obscured from the world by a rather impressive crowd of shouting children. A boy twice her size stood opposite of Lucy in the circle, cracking his joints menacingly while the fiery little girl before him stood calmly, her weight shifted forward and her arms relaxed by her side. Her opponent looked confident, despite the girl's reputation: how could he lose to someone so small and skinny?

Lucy, on the other hand, wore a mask of indifference, aside from an angry spark in her jade green eyes. The green pendent of her choker swung on its chain as she danced from foot to foot. She hadn't meant for this particular fight to start, but as was the case with her other numerous victims, she was confident that this boy deserved the pain and humiliation that he was about to receive.

The boy made the first move, charging Lucy with a growl and swinging a heavy fist at her head. Had he made impact, the fight would have been his, but instead his hand met empty air.

Lucy had darted quickly to the side of him, her speed something she'd built up through years of alleyway fights and running from the authorities. The boy had the strength that Lucy lacked, sure, but he had none of her speed or skill.

While the boy's momentum was still charging forward, Lucy quickly pivoted her foot, twirling her body around on one foot and connecting the flat top of her other foot with the backs of her opponent's knees, causing them to buckle beneath him. He let out a surprised shout as Lucy simultaneously swung her fist, using the combined momentum of her spin and his fall to make up for her lack of brute strength, and punched the boy between his shoulder blades. With his footing already unsteady from his forward charge and his knee's buckling from Lucy's kick, the impact of the punch sent him flying face-first towards the asphalt.

The boy grunted at the impact, his arms twitching up beneath him as he attempted to regain his footing, but the fight was already over. Lucy aimed a heavy kick at his ribs, earning several empathetic moans from the audience, and his arms went limp as he cried out in pain. With a vicious snarl, Lucy drew her foot back one last time and sent it flying into the boy's face, bloodying (and likely breaking) his nose and drawing out more noisy reactions from the crowd.

"Touch me again and you won't get off so easy," she spat coldly before turning to exit the circle. The crowd parted for her, murmuring uneasily as she passed.

It had been at school earlier that day: the boy and his goonish group of lackeys had stood around their usual trashcan. Lucy had planned to ignore them, walking past them with a book in hand, until the pathetic ring leader began spouting his lewd comments, grabbing her wrist when she had the audacity to ignore him.

She didn't like being touched, especially without her permission. They met beneath the overpass a couple of hours after classes ended.

Lucy walked out from beneath the overpass, her breath puffing out of her in thin white clouds, and trotted quickly over the cracked sidewalks as she darted expertly across crowded streets, through dirty alleys, even hopping a fence and crossing a deserted yard in one shortcut, until she finally reached the road her home was currently on.

It had been years since Xulub had brought her to Chicago, and Lucy's first memories of the place were hazy, muddled by her shock and grief, and perhaps by factors outside of her control. Nonetheless, Lucy was a very different girl now. Still quiet, smart, intuitive, but harder than she'd been before. Between the slaughter of her family, the realization that her fate would be determined by a demon who still refused to speak to her, and the harshness of the South Side, Lucy had seen darker things than the average adult, so this change in character was to be expected.

She had her outlets, though, self-destructive as they were; kids on the South Side grew up quickly, and Lucy grew up quicker than all of them. She didn't have many friends, but she more than made up for that with enemies. Lucy was always so quiet that she drew attention, and the attention of impoverished children was predictably malicious, but Lucy never allowed disrespect to go unpunished. She soon found that she had a knack for fighting, and when the fights dried up as her reputation grew more frightening, she discovered that adrenaline of any kind was enough to keep her sane.

She vandalized. She stole for the fun of it. She ran when she was eventually caught. And oddly enough, it was only with the wind in her hair and her blood pumping excitedly through her veins that she felt the numbness leave her, and she could _breathe_ again, she could throw back her head and smile wide. She could _laugh_ again.

But the thrilling rush would always quickly abandon her, and she would find her footsteps growing heavier as she ventured home before curfew.

Her home was tall and narrow and brown, with a tiny yard and a chain-link fence surrounding it. It had two stories, though they were so old that the building had a rather off putting lean to it. The other homes on her street were set up in a similar fashion, in various states of disrepair, mounds of junk set up importantly around the hovels.

A tall black girl with wide shoulders sat on the porch, her muscular legs swinging absently as she stared forlornly out into the street, her blank expression miles away. She was sporting a freshly split lip, spots of her tattered clothes torn and spotted with dried blood.

Lucy trudged up the steps, glancing at the solid wooden surface of the front door. Hearing sounds of commotion from behind it, Lucy sighed and sat beside the girl on the porch instead.

"Hey, Luce. Long day?"

"Hi, Louise. Yeah, guess so," Lucy said truthfully, feeling the soreness in her knuckles and feet.

Her companion was quiet for a time. "He found them again, flushed them. I don't know what I'm going to do, I can't afford another treatment, not after it took me so long to save for the last one."

Lucy felt a frown tugging at her full lips, and hot anger washed over her. Louise had been her foster sister for the last few years, and the two girls had a comfortable companionship they fell into; it wasn't often that foster kids remained in the same house for years, but it had been so long since Lucy was last moved around that she doubted the time would ever come again. Not that she enjoyed her current home: her foster parents were cruel, selfish people, more concerned with the checks they received from the state than they were with their charges. Unless the children did something to upset them, that is. They were always quick to punish, and evidence of Louise's punishment was etched into her very skin. Despite this, though, Lucy preferred her current situation to her previous isolation; jumping from home to home without a friend in the world was a very terrible kind of pain.

"I'll get the money together again, don't worry," Lucy told her friend reassuringly, hiding her anger behind a mask of indifference. It wasn't fair, the way the world treated Louise. Her parents kicked her out when she came home wearing skirts and painting her nails instead of playing basketball with her brothers, and her foster parents now beat her for what they considered a _perversion_.

Louise started to cry. "I'm so sorry, Luce. I'm so useless, these treatments cost almost two thousand dollars a year… I can't even afford a single refill. I can't keep asking you to do this for me."

Lucy patted her foster sister on the back.

"They're the scum here, Louise. I'm not accepting your apology, there's no reason for it."

Louise cried harder at that, and Lucy began rubbing small circles absently into her back. Lucy could feel her friend's pain and frustration, and she felt so incredibly helpless. Eventually, the girl calmed, sniffing another tearful apology before returning inside.

Lucy didn't follow her inside for hours, instead watching the sun dip below the horizon and listening to the distant sirens as she hastily concocted her plan.

* * *

She knew in her gut, the moment the ring hit the inside of her pocket, that she'd made a mistake. Lucy was quick, smart, but she wasn't perfect.

She ran fast, and they were faster. She was caught before she could even process the flaws in her escape route. They were delivering her to her foster parents before she could explain that she'd rather be incarcerated than returned to them in such a way.

Their beating didn't hurt, much – she was so used to pain, by now, that she welcomed it as she would an old friend – but this was something the other children didn't understand.

"No, wait! It's my fault, she was just trying to help me," Louise eventually cried out, unable to watch her younger friend be brutalized any longer. "So I could start my treatments again, please, stop!"

* * *

Lucy could see the hatred in their faces, and she knew that this had been the final straw for her stand-in parents. Louise went against their virtues – it was always so strange, to Lucy, how the most horrible of people would _cling_ to religion, as if justifying their actions with God made them any less sinful – and they wouldn't let her _'drag them all down to hell.'_

She waited the following day for reassignment, expecting to be split from her beloved foster sister and sent to God-knows-where.

She was right in this assumption, at least partially; the men came for them the following night, and Lucy calls them _the men_ as she was offered nothing better to refer to them by. They were vaguely familiar, and Lucy realized they were part of a gang that hung around their part of town.

A gang that, unbeknownst to Lucy, had mentioned a very _interesting_ proposition to their foster father weeks before.

Xulub appeared in the corner of her room when they arrived, its malicious smile and wheezing laughter filling Lucy with intense dread. The horned demon was absent most days, no longer watching her from the corner as it had during her childhood, only appearing to watch the events that resulted in the most misery for Lucy.

Only appearing when it was needed.

The men were stuffing gags in the groggy girls' mouths, tugging them violently to their feet and backhanding Lucy when she tried to twist away. Louise's choked sobs could be heard from behind her mask.

And Xulub was _laughing_. God, how Lucy hated that fucking sound. She hated it, the horrible creature that seemed to be personally responsible for her suffering. She knew its games by now, having lived through them for the past eleven years: give her something to live for, and then crush it out in the foulest fashion imaginable.

 _Please_ , Lucy prayed, something she never did. _Please don't take Louise from me, too_.

The girls were in a van, then. It was dark and reeked of sweat, and Lucy could hear the shallow breathing of the other little girls that had been _sold_ , by parents or friends or complete strangers. She could feel Louise's tall presence beside her, choking against her gag as she sobbed in terror. Lucy leaned against her, trying to ease the girls pain, helpless as she was, for she wasn't afraid for her _own_ safety: Lucy had a pitiful sense of self-perseverance; her healing was unnaturally fast, and Xulub only ever allowed for those around her to come into harm's way, so she assumed herself safe. She knew that this wasn't the case for Louise.

 _THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!_

* * *

Human trafficking.

It's never something that anyone likes to talk about, not in America; it's a distant problem, something that Liam Neeson and the East had to deal with, but that's where it stayed, right?

Wrong.

Wrong.

So, so very _wrong_.

In truth, it's an issue touching every corner of the globe. Where there are people, there is exploitation of the weak. Children being the weakest of them all.

In Chicago, it was so _easy_. Thousands of shipping containers, who's to say which held drugs, which held _produce_? Which held people… The containers went missing all the time – no system could be perfect when it involved such a large quantity – and as such, it was less uncommon than the average North Sider would like to believe for _people_ to be smuggled in and out of the country in them.

For little girls and boys to be held in them while they waited to be _sold off_ to the highest bidder.

Foster children were especially easy targets when it came to this line of work. With no one looking for them, their disappearances were usually tagged as runaways with little-to-no investigative efforts. And even if they weren't _actually_ kidnapped, runaway orphans were so easy to entrap, to coerce into servitude that would too soon be unwilling.

 _The War on Drugs_. What a ridiculous concept to sensationalize, Lucy now thought, because she would discover what true professional crime looked like. Nothing sold better than sex, and _slaves_ were still a very appealing concept to many.

"I'll show your whore of a mother how _rotten_ this world can be," Xulub hissed, its voice unheard by all but one as it echoed around in the in the dark, cold steel container.

* * *

 **A/N: My apologies for any errors. I am a lazy editor.**

 **Ookay, so this chapter was a lot IMO. Lot's of jumping around, brief mentions of people you don't know, but this was very intentional. Lucy's past is sort of being outlined right now as it's important to _know_ a little going into the Death Note plotline, but I'm going to be filling things in some with flashbacks later on. Else we're gonna be here a while lmao. The jumping will stop soon, I promise, so it'll feel a lot less rushed and whatnot.**

 **Also, I like to vary _where_ Lucy gets to suffer. If you'd like to know about what _I_ had in mind while researching some things, PM me! I'd be more than happy to answer any of your questions, but for now you can all just HC whatever I don't state outright. ;)**

 **Alright, thanks again to the supporters this story has acquired thus far, you guys are the best! We should be meeting L soon - perhaps in the next chapter, but no promises - so I'm excited.**

 **(Until next time, REVIEW!)**


	4. Chapter 3

**CHOSEN**

Chapter Three: COME AND SEE.

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing, this fanfiction belongs to the people…**

 **Aside from Lucy. Lucy belongs to Xulub.**

 **Might have (definitely) ripped off a scene from Game of Thrones in here somewhere.**

 **This chapter includes a time jump of several years, I'll be filling it back in later, but in case you get confused.**

 **SEXUAL ABUSE MENTIONS. Honestly that's just something that this story will be dealing with, make of that what you will. If that makes you uncomfortable – and I mean this in the kindest and most understanding way – please do not continue reading this story.**

 **(See end of chapter for Author's Note).**

* * *

Lucy faded in and out of consciousness. The world felt very far away, as it often did when Lucy found things to be too difficult; like she had in the tree, continents away, lifetimes ago, as she'd awaited a family that would never truly return to her.

Like she did now, in a shipping container that reeked of piss and sweat and fear.

Her eyelids strained against their drug-induced heaviness – they'd all been tranquillized with something, and it made Lucy very dizzy and tired – while she rotated her wrists, letting the tight binding that kept them behind her break into her smooth skin. Had there been light, the ropes would have been tinged a rusty brown, but in the darkness, nothing was anything.

Lucy had managed to remain close to Louise. She wasn't sure why, or how, as they'd been moved several times by faceless, rough-handed men, but she was still beside the girl. She could still feel the terror washing off of her in waves, could hear her heavy, quick breaths when panic threatened to overtake her, but another pittance of drugged food and water quickly fixed that.

It seemed, though, that Lucy was left the most lucid by the drug, though she wasn't exactly thankful for that. Her very soul _ached_ , with guilt and self-loathing. This was her fault. Had Louise never known her, she wouldn't be here. Had Lucy never helped her, the girl would have known misery, sure, but she'd have lived to see the future. Had Lucy never been stupid enough to keep close to her, Xulub wouldn't have singled her out.

Lucy couldn't have friends. Lucy couldn't have loved ones. Lucy would always have no one, and Xulub would make sure of that.

Louise was going to die, or worse, or both.

And it was all Lucy's fault.

* * *

 _CRACK!_

A horrible scream could be heard. The pain in it was heartbreaking, but more disturbing than that was how very _small_ it sounded. For it belonged to a little girl, no older than fifteen, with a curtain of dirty blonde hair limply obscuring her face.

The room they stood in was red and warm, with tapestries on the walls and rich mounds of maroon bedding, velvet armchairs, overstuffed and lumpy, ornate gold frames surrounding equally ornate paintings. Extravagance, warm and overflowing, but terribly out of place.

Beside the girl stood three others, of similar ages and statures, though one stood out dark to the other girls' fair: brown skin, dark curls, dark expression. Her head was dipped down, similar to the others, in order to obscure her face; as her curls parted against the back of her neck, the thin line of a black chain could be made out.

The man that stood before her smelt of stale piss and putrid sweat. He wasn't particularly tall, but he was taller than the little girls before him. He wasn't very big either, but again, he was bigger than them. The blonde girl, the one who had screamed, now shook with barely concealed sobs. The man smirked triumphantly, pleasure etched into his features, before descending on the next girl.

 _CRACK!_

The cane whistled as it flew through the air, imbedding itself in the soft skin of the little girls. Another terrible scream, this one louder and filled with more pain than the last, and her sobs weren't concealed at all.

Then the next. _CRACK!_ More of the same, and the man licked his lips before he swung his arm down at the last remaining girl, the dark one who stood calmly, whereas the others stood shaking.

 _CRACK!_

The girl lurched from the impact, but she didn't make a sound. The other girls stopped their commotions at once, sniffling slightly, eyes wide as they shot nervous glances at the strange girl from beneath wet lashes.

The man's expression changed to something between a smirk and a scowl, and he waved a hand dismissively to the other girls. He hadn't been faced with such a challenge in a long time, and even the most devious of escapes lost their… Spark, at least after a time. Breaking _her_ would heighten his pleasure.

"Out."

They didn't need to be told twice. Little feet scurried hurriedly across the floor, while the man brutally swung his cane.

 _CRACK!_ They winced, walked quicker. _CRACK!_ They would have another reason to hate themselves tonight. _SNAP!_ The cane broke, and the girls were out of the room.

The remaining girl – a child by all rights, barely breeching puberty, her late blooming aside – didn't make a sound, and her bruises healed as quickly as they formed. Pain wasn't permanent to her. Nothing in life was permanent to her, and as such she wasn't all that attached to it. The other girls hadn't learned that, at least not yet, and Lucy had many advantages over them. She could endure.

But she wished they would just forget about her.

 _Stop it. Stop punishing yourselves for me._ She felt their guilt and pity wash over her in waves.

The man didn't sleep, and neither did she, but the man didn't do anything to Lucy that night, because Lucy wasn't there anymore. No one could hurt Lucy, and Lucy couldn't die; she'd tested the theory enough to know it true. Lucy had mastered the art of sending herself far away.

 _And how?_ She would always ask herself this, in the past, in the dark of the night while she lay with the other girls, staring at her ceiling. Once she discovered the answer, she found that sleep came much easier. Everything came much easier.

So why can't Lucy die?

Simple, really.

Lucy was already dead.

* * *

" _I thought the reports that came in were about a… Fire?"_

" _Yeah. Pilot saw smoke risin'."_

" _There's a fire and they send the archeologists."_

Laughter on the other end. _"We're the only one's dumb enough to respond, I'd say. No one else would give two shits about this place."_

" _But… This…"_

" _It isn't a fire."_

" _No… No, it really isn't."_

The Red Village wasn't burning.

It was very red, though.

The archeologists wore rubber suits, their air _whooshing_ in through filters and heavy plastic blurring their vision. They didn't need the suits, though they had no way of knowing that the virus they feared wouldn't harm them, and that a rubber suit wouldn't stop It if It wanted to.

They walked tentatively through the village, gravel crunching under their feet, obscenely loud against the unnatural hush the world around them had fallen into. They peered into little houses, with their red clay floors, and found them all empty. No corpses. They'd been burned long ago, by strangers in identical, pointless, rubber suits.

No one had lived here for years. No one _would_ live here again: the area was kept under a quiet quarantine. The Red Village, a tiny pocket of the world largely untouched by modern society, displayed an almost Biblical level of pestilence. Science didn't like things it couldn't explain, so it went away. The people covered in red sores, who had all fallen ill and died the same night in their sleep. No struggle, no sign of deterioration, no fresh graves to suggest that they'd seen other cases before… Everyone had gone to sleep, and no one had gotten up the next day.

Once their bodies were burned, only the eccentrics clung to the mystery. The evidence was albeit washed away though. There hadn't been much to go on in recent years.

So who, then, had done this? And more importantly, was that _blood_?

Every wall in the town had been slashed with red, written in Latin, in rusty red lettering: _"VENI ET VIDE!"_

On every wall, inside and out, until the words began to merge and all that could be seen was red chaos.

" _VENI ET VIDE!"_

" _VENI ET VIDE!"_

"Come and see!" the ghost town beckoned.

"COME AND SEE!"

* * *

Louise visited her in her dreams. The air was always light and happy when she slept, and she could smell grass and feel the sun on her skin, things she hadn't felt in _ages_. And Louise was always laughing – they never talked much, really, but Lucy didn't mind.

Green was her favorite color, Lucy had decided. They were always outside, somewhere far away, untouched by civilization.

Oh, how she wished she hadn't gone. But if Louise got to stay in their paradise, Lucy didn't mind the solitude. The waking hours were dull, and they slid by with a quick numbness. There wasn't much sunlight, and in later years, no food. Lucy made no effort to understand where she was. Lucy could endure.

Some nights were still bad, though. The old Louise would visit her, with her gaping wrists dripping blood.

" _Why? Why did you do this to me, Lucy?"_

Lucy would whimper, crouching down and slamming her hands over her ears. She would try to sing, as she had as a child, but her words would stick in her throat. Lucy knew she was guilty.

" _Why?"_ her sister's chorused.

Guilty.

" _Why?"_ her mother cried.

She was so sorry.

" _Why did you kill us, Lucy?"_

* * *

" _Veni et vide."_ The young man's voice was soft, cracking slightly from hours without use, but a deep, confident rumble nonetheless.

It was a phenomenon of seemingly Biblical proportions, if he were to echo the thoughts of his peers. It was because of this idiotic assumption, however, that he had taken the case to begin with. To chop things up to the supernatural, to him, was to admit defeat, and that simply wasn't something he did. People were capable of horrible things, and people _did_ horrible things; it was his duty to catch the criminals at hand so that no one else would fall victim to them. No one was above justice – be it God or Satan, if you were to believe in that sort of thing.

This crime was admittedly perfect, though, so he understood why his fellows were loath to address it. _And on such a global scale_ … He had to admit, it was rather impressive. The Red Village, a catastrophe that occurred when he was still a child (though he personally theorized some sort of chemical warfare, accidental or otherwise), threw up red flags when a private pilot flying over South America reported a large amount of smoke pouring out of the area.

Judging by the images archeologists took of the village, however, there were no signs of a fire. Just those words, painted again and again in _blood_. The lab results concluded that it wasn't entirely human, but a mixture of human and animal blood. Unsettling, to say the least.

And then, far away from Mexico, in a rural, mountainous region in Syria, another fire is reported to burn at the same approximate time as the other, continents apart. This time, though, there is certainly evidence of a fire. It's burned into the very ground, in angry black lettering, its ink the scorched trees and earth in its wake. No traces of chemicals have been found on site.

" _VENI ET VIDE!"_ it beckoned, legible only from an aerial standpoint.

The third wasn't found for a time, but it was probable that the taunting words had been written at the same time as the others.

The young man furrowed his brow, sighing heavily.

He was familiar with the allusion, of course, but again, he absolutely refused to believe this was a matter of the apocalypse. Be it for justice, or even his own personal sanity, he had to understand this. It had quite recently become an obsession.

He'd taken time off from his usual duties to investigate, and without any investors to hire him for this particular case, he dove into work from his childhood home. It was an admittedly sentimental place for him; Wammy's House had been the closest thing he'd ever had to a home. The peaceful, safe environment not only produced no economic strain, but allowed for a comfortable solitude he seldom was able to experience anymore. Teenage geniuses led busy lives, after all.

" _Veni et vide_ ," Latin, he easily recognized, translating to " _come and see_."

The implications behind this weren't difficult to discern; he'd dealt with occult-geared killings before, and this had the same ritualistic setup as the others had. Sacrifices, as seen with the Biblical massacre of the Red Village, weren't uncommon, though such a large scale was as impressive as it was despicable. A crime like this would take _decades_ to plan, and more than time to properly execute. This _person_ , be it the Anti-Christ, what have you, thought themselves a God amongst men: the taunting messages, the profoundly large scale crimes – impossible to be covered and ignored – as well as the transparent Biblical allusions. It had been long since he'd found a psychopath of this level, and he had to admit his curiosity was insatiable. He wanted to carry out justice, always, but being a genius did get a bit boring. Pursuing another on equal grounds, getting into the head of someone he didn't immediately understand, someone as intelligent as him, was a rush he would never tire of.

And for this to be the _set-up_ , the _incomplete_ set-up... Again, he was impressed. By choosing this route for their crimes, L found it highly probable that this criminal was by no means finished. These crimes took a lifetime to plan, and they were only to grab the attention of the public. Just who was he dealing with, who could be capable of this?

The Red Village, an unknown illness wipes out hundreds, Pestilence.

" _COME AND SEE!"_

Syria, in a nearly constant state of civil unrest, War.

" _COME AND SEE!"_

A private island in the Mediterranean, owned by a vile old man made powerful through oil and exploitation, had been the most disturbing by far, at least to the young detective. So many dead children, mostly young women, all found starved to death. The staff of the island, as well as the patrons, who'd kept the enslaved fed and clean, also dead, but of more Red Death. Famine.

" _VENI ET VIDE!"_ slashed on the walls, gleeful and teasing.

 _That makes three_ , he thought, having finished cataloging his findings. Famine had been the most difficult to get information on as it was easily covered by authorities, and human trafficking cases were kept very low profile to begin with – but he had his resources. _The stage is almost set._

His heart pounded, the rush of his findings clashing uncomfortably with his consciousness. So many victims, this was probably the largest act of blatant terrorism the world had ever been faced with, and it was certainly nothing to rejoice over. But he would solve this, of that he was certain, so there was no reason he couldn't enjoy the chase.

There was a sudden commotion outside, a series of shouts and other such exclamations.

Snapped from his thoughts, L peered out the window, curious and alarmed to find the children surrounding a _body_ on the front lawn.

He moved quickly, practically running to investigate the bizarre turn in events.

Watari was ushering the children back inside, positioning his body as to block out the scene before him. Or, at least attempting to.

"MOVE, OLD MAN!" Mello shrieked indignantly, his young voice cracking in frustration.

L moved around them, eyes widening as the bloodied figure on the lawn came into clearer view. Her arms were twitching as though she were trying to lift herself, or turn herself over. An amazing feat, considering her injuries. His pale skin grew several shades lighter, his rimmed eyes widening as his sweets threatened to make a reappearance.

It was carved into her very skin, in English for the first time: " _COME AND SEE,"_ sprawled in that familiar script, sliced thinly into the brown skin that stretched tightly over freckled shoulder blades, written in blood in an entirely new sense.

The girl succeeded in shoving herself to her knees, tipping back into a sitting position, before anyone else could find the sense to react. A turned to retch, the gore too much for the softer boy to handle, and B quickly moved to comfort his friend. Roger took out a phone with shaking hands, the old man's cool exterior wavering as he called for a doctor.

She was just staring at them, panting in pain, her brown skin taking up an unnatural pale from blood loss, her face sunken from lack of food, but her green eyes still impressively alert. Her full lips parted as she panted, her tongue flicking out to wet the cracked, dry skin. Her hair was in wild, unkempt, brown curls down to her waist, matted with blood and dirt. L couldn't do anything but stare at her, at this _message_ the killer seemed to have dropped onto his lawn, wrapped in this wildly, dangerously ethereal package. She was directed at him, how could she not be? The message he'd been repeating, investigating, compiling evidence on, scrawled for the very first time in his native tongue and dropped onto his front lawn, as if in answer to the challenge he'd given in the safety of his mind… L's heart pounded uncomfortably in his ears. He'd been presented the fourth Horseman, and the stage was now set.

He was staring at Death.

And she was staring back.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Yo. Things bouta get interesting.**

 **Not sure when the next update will come, sorry for the frustration there… I'm the worst. I won't abandon you, I'm just busy and depressed. This chapter jumped around a lot AGAIN but like I've said, I'll be filling things in as we go. Gotta have flashbacks. There will be no confusion by the time I've finished this story (years and years from now? Perhaps). Right now, we're before the Beyond Birthday plot. Wammy's House is bumpin', love these kids.**

 **I hope you've been enjoying thus far, and if you have, please consider leaving me a review! Thanks so much to those who have supported me so far, you're the best, I would've never gotten past the prologue without you all. :-)**


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